What's New in APRS Nov-6-2013

Updated 11/11/2013:

One interesting item I missed on the last What's New posting was the presence of the local HamWan nodes on the APRS-IS.

  http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/find.cgi?hamwan*

HamWAN, a high speed data network in the Puget Sound region, continues to make good progress - check it out:

  web page:  http://www.hamwan.org

  discussion:  http://mail.hamwan.org/mailman/listinfo/psdr_hamwan.org

It only costs $200 out of pocket to finance a client node and it's a good education in networking, microwaves and RF engineering.

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On Sun, Sep 8, 2013 at 11:00 PM, Bill Vodall wrote:
> The question of what's new in APRS came up at our discussion today at the Summer Gathering...   It's an interesting subject.

It's been a couple months.  Not much new in APRS to report...

DCC was a great time.   You missed out if you missed out...

UZ7HO website is back after a brief missing in action with a new URL address:  http://uz7.ho.ua/modem_beta/history.txt.   Version .57 of the soundmodem TNC is now available.

UZ7HO SCM v0.57b changes:
- Reduced CPU load.
- Added option that disable waterfall in minimized state.
- Added option of the application priority that improves the work of the modem
  during peaks of CPU load (decreased gaps and stuttering sound during
transmission).

A full installer is available at the WA8LMF website:  http://wa8lmf.net/miscinfo  - Scroll about two thirds of the way down the page of download links, and look for "UZ7HO".

The NET14 APRS channel project has been terminated due to QRM. http://net14.org.uk/

Some of the activity has moved to 30 meters and some of that is now running as Robust Packet (RP).  It's been fascinating following the RP reports of N1ZZZ and his travels around the world.

A new 9k6 (and better) low priced radio/tracker is available for pre-order:   https://www.argentdata.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=171
   Original posting: http://www.tapr.org/pipermail/aprssig/2013-October/042430.html

The APRS authors are cleaning up the symbol handling and automating it.  This will be a good thing. https://github.com/hessu/aprs-deviceid/blob/master/README.md  Original posting: http://www.tapr.org/pipermail/aprssig/2013-October/042435.html

Thanks to Tom and crew for making the BALDI packet logs available. Very interesting and useful but that's another post: http://northwest.aprs2.net/BALDI/

I can't think of anything else now - it's been quiet.  Too busy playing with the NW-MESH servers to do much on packet but that's changing soon.

Bill, WA7NWP

What's New in APRS - Sept 2013

What's new in APRS - here's a quick list as of September, 2013.

• Robust Packet APRS on HF with the SCS Tracker TNC
• Improved sound card packet decoding and bad bit correction with:
• Dier Wolf
• UZ7HO modems
• APRSISCE new features
• shrieks
• APRSC IS server
• APRX (http://wiki.ham.fi/Aprx.en) digipeater and IGate.  It runs on the Rpi just fine and does the viscous digipeating for fill-ins.  It doesn't have quite the path munging capabilities of DIGINED yet, but it appears to be heading that direction.  APRX also runs great on OpenWRT boxes.  APRX is even in the OpenWRT package feeds if you don't feel like compiling it. (ZPO)
• Viscous digipeating for fill-in digipeaters
• Beta build #26 of YAAC (Yet Another APRS Client)
• Release 1.2.3 of APRSDroid - new features and bug fixes - ttps://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.aprsdroid.app
• Cut Bank, MT has a fill in digipeater  (YEAH!!!!!) - http://map.findu.com/w7dpk
• A new version of the Kenwood D710, the D710g, has been announced. It will have a built in GPS.
• APRStt seems to be evolving - http://aprs.org/aprstt.html
• Dedicated TNC (http://www.tnc-x.com/TNCPi.htm)  for the Raspberry PI (N8GNJ)
• Dedicated digipeaters for the TNC-X.. Not so new but interesting anyway.
• http://tnc-x.com/XDigi.htm
• http://www.usmartdigi.com/
• Microsat WX3INI - http://www.rpc-electronics.com/microsat-wx3in1.php
• YagTracker - http://www.rpc-electronics.com/yagtracker.php
• BPQAPRS which now runs on Linux (Raspberry PI, etc), LINBPQ, and has a good start on a WEB GUI.  http://www.cantab.net/users/john.wiseman/Documents/InstallingLINBPQ.htm

Summer Gathering 2013 - Sept 6 through Sept 8

Details here soon on the Northwest APRS Summer Gathering...

Also coming soon in our region:

• 9/20-22/2013 - Digital Communications Convention at Cedarbrook Lodge - http://tapr.org/dcc.html
• 9/28/2013 - Spokane Hamfest - http://spokanehamfest.com/
• 10/12-13/2013 - Pacific Northwest VHF Society conference - http://pnwvhfs.org/

Re-sending invitations to the new NWAPRS Google Group

A significant number of members of the old NWAPRS mailing list group never responded to the first round of invites to join to the new mailing list.  I'm working through them now with a 'second' invite.

73
Bill, WA7NWP
 

Please Stop any PCSAT Transmissions

Please QRT all transmissions to PCsat to save power for COMMANDing.

PCSAT (W3ADO-1) is entering its 3 day RECOVERY window this year starting 31 Jan.

Today we got logged on for commanding twice, but both times user packets killed the bird.

At best PCSAT can usually only save up enough power for 2 or 3 solid packets per pass  and we need 3  successfully for command and recover.  One user packet in the middle of that and we lose it for the pass.

MY fault for not making this announcement earlier.  Not their fault.  But if you see this email and you are transmitting to PCsat, please QRT for the next several days.

Commanding is being done from the East and West coast of the USA and over Germany.

WB4APR, Bob
USNA Command Station

New EMail Reflector for NWAPRS

Update 12/6/2012 - The list of email addresses has been collected and invites will be be sent starting today. There is a large number of participants and it remains to be seen how Google handles a process like this.   Yahoo had a limit on the number of invites per day and we may seem something similar with Google.

There is no way to differentiate on the types of email addresses.  Some were digests and others were no-mail.  As a result everybody will be sent the same simple invitation and you can adjust your settings accordingly.

This new system should be more maintainable and with a richer selection of other tools.  It will keep us going as we build an even better portal.

73
Bill

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We're tentatively going with the NWAPRS Google Groups forum as a replacement for the NWAPRSSIG mailing list.

  https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/nwaprs

Members of the old list will be sent invites but you can sign up directly at any time.    As before, the Yahoo group will be used as a message archive.

73
Bill - WA7NWP

www.nwaprs update

Stay tuned.   The static website is back.  We have a link to the blog.   I'll upload a blog posting today with a summary of the 2012 Summer Gathering presentations.   Then over the next couple days we'll get the email and email list back on line.

In the future -- lets work towards a full cloud based wordpress portal for the community...

73
Bill - WA7NWP